Colosse: A Story in Virtual Reality

Colosse is a virtual reality storytelling experience with a character and alternative environment. The player does not control the character directly but uses gaze based movement which focuses on whatever the player looks at for the longest time or gives the most attention to will be where the story will go to next.

The world is real time rendered which is something of interest as we thought that we would have to render everything before hand but as it is a game as such we hope to do it in real time as well. The world of Colosse is a combination of 2D art placed in a real time VR 3D environment.

“VR storytelling is no easy feat. We set out to create an experience that requires no direct input from the viewer and yet allows them to experience a story crafted for real-time VR. This is quite a challenge, and elements of the scene – animation, audio design, ‘set’ design – will guide the viewer’s attention toward important story elements.”

Interestingly ‘gaze’ driven mechanics are used to direct the player through the experience. Gaze mechanics more or less guides the story by not only what the player is looking at but by how long the player is looking at it.

“moving events to where the viewer is looking, rather than having to ensure the viewer looks the ‘correct’ way.”

This ensures that the player always has a moment or in our case a memory to interact with in the environment and that the pace of the experience is controlled.

This project has spent a lot of time on sound and music to control the feeling and atmosphere of the experience. The audio can be used as a guide as such or to match events or actions taking place. Sound is something we are interested in with this project and will need to give this world feeling.

Transitions and camera movement will be something to think about as we try and answer fully what our project is all about and how the user will experience it.